Keeping Conductivity Down

[Jonathan Aquair]

Anyone have a good way to keep Conductivity down? I keep leaf litter in all my tanks, but in my new tank i can't manage to keep it down. It is a 75 gallon and there are upwards of 300+ Indian Almond leaves, and somehow the cond. is settled at ~322 µS/cm. I use R.O. water and water from my Apisto breeding tanks.

 

[Mike Wise]

I'd suggest more frequent water changes using only RO water.

 

[gerald]

... or rainwater if it's reasonably clean in your area. Leaves and peat can absorb Ca+ and Mg+ and thus lower GH hardness, but they do not lower conductivity.

 

[tjudy]

Lots of things can cause conductivity to go up, but not all of those things are problems. For example, Na+ ions (from the disassociation of NaCl salt) will increase conductivity with very little affect on the fish, spawning or fertility rates. Mg+ and Ca+ ions are a different story. Those two ions make up the bulk of the general hardness we want out of soft water aquariums. The only way to get those ions out is by an ion exchange system (water softener or deionization resin) or reverse osmosis.